


Like Puzzle Pieces

by Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler



Series: Doctor Tenor; Soldier Spy [3]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Drama, Episode: s01e03 Parallax, Gen, Gender Neutral Starfleet Personnel, Pre-Relationship, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 02:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12181179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler/pseuds/Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler
Summary: Not even three days since their "voyage of the damned" officially began, and Security had been called to Engineering on account of one B'Elanna Torres. Tyvaa almost wanted to laugh, but she was right on B'Elanna's heels and escorting her back to their shared quarters.





	Like Puzzle Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to thatadroitgeek for beta-reading. This one was rough, but she smoothed it out considerably (:

 

Not even three days since their “voyage of the damned” officially began, and Security had been called to Engineering on account of one B’Elanna Torres. Tyvaa almost wanted to laugh, but she was right on B’Elanna’s heels and escorting her back to their shared quarters.

Anger rolled off B’Elanna in waves, so Tyvaa didn’t attempt to guide the furious engineer by her elbow like protocol dictated she should, and waited until the door to their quarters slid shut behind her to say a word.

“What did Carey say to you?” asked Tyvaa. Her tone was even and calm, as she wasn’t eager to provoke B’Elanna to further violence.

B’Elanna growled in her throat, but eventually declared, “First off, he was being an idiot-”

“And we both know how well you suffer fools,” Tyvaa muttered.

“He told me my solution would cause an overload! He looked at me like I was an _idiot_ , Tyvaa. Realigning the conduits had a _small chance_ of causing an overload, and even if they did, that engine room has the safety features to handle it,” B’Elanna snorted derisively, but there was a faint smile on her face as she continued, “Like I’d ruin the best engine room this side of _anywhere_ by suggesting something that I wasn’t sure would work.”

Tyvaa sank into the small sofa and watched B’Elanna pace. The engineer was condemning Carey with derision now, describing what kind of idiot he must be for disagreeing with her and getting offended about it. After spending a year on the _Val Jean_ with B’Elanna, Tyvaa had learned that waiting out B’Elanna’s temper was the course with the least bloodshed. She let her crewmate rant, nodded along when she felt she was supposed to, and briefly considered getting a drink from the replicator for the wait. However, the doorbell chimed brightly, diverting Tyvaa from her angry roommate.

“I’ll get it,” Tyvaa volunteered, only to be summarily ignored by B’Elanna.

In her rage, the pacing Klingon threw a dish at the door just as it opened. Chakotay, who narrowly avoided the bowl, didn’t spare the shattered pottery one glance as he walked into their quarters, nor did he seem fazed when B’Elanna resumed her snarling.

Chakotay held out a PADD to her. “Here.”

“What’s this?” B’Elanna demanded.

“The medical report on Lieutenant Carey.”

B’Elanna refused the report, and instead launched once more into her opinions about the Engineering lieutenant. Tyvaa took the PADD from Chakotay’s hands while he attempted to set B’Elanna straight. As she skimmed, Tyvaa was surprised at the way the report flowed. She could practically hear the Doctor’s exasperation pouring off the words, and it didn’t read like a computer wrote it, all perfectly complete sentences and bullet-point paragraphs.

“I don’t need support from anybody,” B’Elanna sulked.

“You are if you’re going to be Chief Engineer on this ship,” declared Chakotay.

Tyvaa’s head snapped up from the PADD and B’Elanna stilled. While Chakotay was certainly clever enough and had enough pull to suggest a coup, that simply wasn’t his style.

B’Elanna scoffed. “Right.”

“Chakotay,” Tyvaa spoke slowly, “What are you saying?”

“Carey is next in line for the spot, anyway,” added B’Elanna.

“You’re a better engineer than he is,” Chakotay stated. He wasn’t casual, he wasn’t relaxed; that was how he lied, trying too hard to hide the effort and trying to make it look effortless. His dark eyes were hard and uncompromising as stone, and Tyvaa relaxed. He wanted B’Elanna promoted because he wanted the best, nothing more. Tyvaa almost felt bad for the suspicion, but it was reassuring that she still knew Chakotay enough to spot the difference between truth and lie.

“You don’t need to tell me that. What does the Captain have to say about this?” B’Elanna demanded.

Chakotay answered, “She hasn’t said a word, because I haven’t told her yet.”

To her own surprise, Tyvaa understood why. Chakotay didn’t trust Janeway yet, but he wanted to. Janeway, despite promoting him to Commander, didn’t quite trust him either, and until she did, Chakotay needed to prove above reproach.

“Do you want me to talk you up to her?” asked Tyvaa.

Chakotay and B’Elanna’s heads turned toward her as if they’d forgotten that she was there, and a part of her rankled at that.

“Out of all of us in the room, which one is the respectable and trusted Starfleet officer?” Tyvaa pointed to herself with both her thumbs, and smiled ruefully. “You’ll need help, and the Captain’s ear, or we’ll all go down arguing amongst ourselves.”

Thankfully, Chakotay smiled. “Thanks, Tyvaa, but I don’t think that will be necessary. Maybe talk Tuvok into letting you attend the senior officer’s meeting tomorrow, though. Personnel decisions are on the agenda, if all goes to plan.”

“Seeing as Janeway already told me to be there this morning, I’ll be there,” Tyvaa promised. She felt the urge to smile wide and slow like a satisfied cat from a Terran fairytale, and she knew that this little meeting shouldn’t feel so much like flipping off an authority, but from where Tyvaa was sitting, the jagged hostility between the Maquis and Starfleet crew needed to be smoothed over if their little ship could have hope of getting anywhere close to home again.

* * *

 Tyvaa kept herself on her best behavior during the briefing, but waiting for a fight made her twitchy. She cheerfully gave Kes her chair when she and Neelix crashed the meeting, because it meant that Tyvaa could stand. She also didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed when Janeway simply made a face when Chakotay handed her the list of Maquis officers they had hand-picked for this meeting.

Janeway set the PADD down as if setting it out of sight and out of mind, and quickly changed the subject. “Regarding Sickbay, we still need a Chief Medical Officer,” she declared.

“What about that electronic man down in Sickbay?” Neelix asked.

“It is an Emergency Medical Hologram, and its functions are limited,” refuted Tuvok. “It can only function within the confines of Sickbay.”

“Not to mention its lousy bedside manner,” Tom put in.

Tyvaa was about to fire off a quip, (“What would you know about bedside manner, Paris?”) but Chakotay picked up yet another PADD in front of him and handed it over to the Captain. The mischievous twinkle in his eye encouraged Tyvaa to grab the nearest form of support, but she merely crossed her arms defensively.

“If you don’t mind, Captain, I think I found the transcript of the perfect officer to work alongside the hologram as a field medic, of sorts,” Chakotay suggested.

Janeway’s expression made it clear that she thought that his civility was full of gagh, but her eyebrows arched in impressed surprise as she read the PADD. “This is an Academy transcript, Commander.”

“An Academy transcript with medical classes waived,” he added. “Check why.”

Tyvaa’s stomach curdled in her gut, and her antennae physically drooped. She knew what was coming now, and she wanted to punch Chakotay straight in his smug face.

A pleasantly surprised smile graced Janeway’s face when she looked up from the PADD. “Tyvaa, you never told me you graduated from medical school on Andoria.”

Tyvaa smiled wanly while her hands were clenched into fists behind her back. “It was never relevant, Captain,” she demurred. “I was never licensed to perform medical procedures on non-Andorians. I’d make a useless Chief Medical Officer.”

“You can learn from the EMH in the meantime,” Janeway declared. “Report to Sickbay after the meeting.”

Tyvaa opened her mouth to protest, but it was _Voyager_ who got the last word: the ship shook violently, and the breath was knocked out of her by the impact of falling against the nearest wall.

“Stations, everyone!” barked Captain Janeway, and every officer leapt obediently to action.

A singularity event horizon was certainly something to shake up one’s day, as if it hadn’t already been shaken up. Tyvaa’s fingers twitched as the feeling of uselessness threatened to overwhelm her; she couldn’t shoot it, she couldn’t reason with it, and there was no current way to effectively run from it.

Chakotay spoke out of the blue, “Bridge to Torres. We need a way to get that ship out of there. Any ideas?”

The commander didn’t notice the sharp look Janeway sent his way, but Tyvaa did, and the tenseness she felt in the meeting returned with a rush. Apparently, they were going to get their fight after all.

“The subspace interference, it might be enough to cut through the event horizon,” B’Elanna declared.

“A subspace tractor beam?” clarified Chakotay.

“Exactly.”

“When can you have it ready?”

“Two hours, maybe three.”

“Get right on it, use as many people as you need.”

Janeway broke in sharply, “Mister Carey, what do you think?”

“With the right field modulation, it might work,” he admitted, “but we’ll need more power to the emitter array.”

“Very well,” accepted Janeway. “You’re in charge, Mister Carey. Report to me when the tractor beam is ready. Mister Paris, hold our position here.” She aimed her sharpness at Chakotay now and spoke low. “I’d like to see you in private.”

Tyvaa and Chakotay shared a look as she walked to her ready room. Tyvaa took a step forward to follow, but Chakotay shook his head and Tyvaa let the door slide shut behind him. She crossed her arms, her antennae stretched out and up in hostility, and waited outside the door instead.

The suffocating silence and the waiting would’ve been bad enough, but Paris asked, tone light and faux-innocent, “Why didn’t you tell me you were a doctor, Tyvaa? For a second, I was sure that Chakotay was going to bring up the two semesters that I took biochemistry.”

Tyvaa clenched her fist tighter to reign in the retort she wanted to spit out, and the burn grounded her. She had left the past in the past when she changed careers, and while she knew that Chakotay hadn’t meant any harm, she couldn’t believe that her brief and understated medical history was being thrown back at her in the middle of the _Delta Quadrant,_ of all places.

“How about we leave the past in the past, huh, Paris?”

The ready room door slid open right before Paris could formulate another remark, and as Chakotay stormed out, Tyvaa strode next to him, matching him step for step until the turbolift slid closed around them.

“How did it go?” asked Tyvaa casually, as if asking about a diplomatic function.

“About as you’d expect,” Chakotay replied.

“That bad?” Tyvaa attempted a joke, but continued in a more serious tone, “I’ll have to wait if you want me to talk to her about this, Chakotay. If I went to her now, I’d probably lose my temper. Besides, apparently I report to Sickbay now,” she said pointedly.

Chakotay smiled, but the motion was thin and tired. “No one else has anything close to that kind of experience, Tyv,” he rationalised.

“When someone changes careers, it’s usually for a reason that they don’t want to be reminded of ten years later,” she retorted. For a moment, she kept her shoulders tense, expecting Chakotay to retaliate, but the disapproving glance he sent her looked just as tired as she felt, and Tyvaa let herself relax.

“I’m no stranger to duty, ‘Tay, so I won’t hold this against you,” promised Tyvaa. “I’ll check in at Sickbay, run some maintenance, see just how bad our situation is. You keep an eye on Hurricane Kathryn.”

That finally startled a laugh out of Chakotay, and Tyvaa stepped out of the turbolift with a jaunty salute.  Chakotay turned the corner to his quarters, while Tyvaa walked in the opposite direction, toward Sickbay.

Once he was out of sight, she let her antennae droop and her shoulders drop, empty of the nervous tension that had been holding them up so squarely. The day had been a mite taxing, emotionally, but Tyvaa couldn’t afford to feel tired just yet. She allowed herself a pause outside the Sickbay door, one deep breath in and one steady push out, and then she stepped forward.

Tyvaa took in the space’s softly rounded edges and lighting just this side of too bright with a resigned glance. While _Voyager_ was definitely no Jupiter Station, she had expected something a little roomier for a deep-space exploration vessel, especially one that still carried the factory “new ship” smell. Three patient beds, with an additional one in the surgical suite. One wince-winning, tiny office, with a storage closet and a few computers for situational analysis in the back.

“Might as well get to work,” Tyvaa muttered to herself.

At first, she puttered around the storage closet, cataloging supplies and estimating how long they might last, barring any catastrophe. A nagging voice kept her very aware that their luck surely wouldn’t hold for very long, but Tyvaa simply started cataloging out loud when the quiet got to her.

The first patient walked through the doors about halfway through her self-assigned task. An ensign wearing science-blue stumbled in, clutching their head.

Immediately, Tyvaa grabbed a tricorder and approached the crewmember. “Sit down, Ensign.”

They bit their lip sharply, but nodded and became pliable under Tyvaa’s instruction.

“When did this start?” Tyvaa asked. She tried not to be brusque, but given the ensign’s discomfort, she wasn’t sure if she succeeded. Or, their pain was just particularly bad.

“About an hour ago,” the ensign explained. “It’s like a pulsing, at the base of my skull. I get headaches a lot, so I tried to brush it off, so it wouldn’t interfere with the work, but it got worse as time went on. I’m surprised I didn’t fall over on my way to Sickbay, honestly.”

Tyvaa frowned as she glanced at the tricorder. The device couldn’t find anything majorly wrong with the ensign, but a tricorder didn’t exactly have the finesse to catch every possible problem or to name their solutions. “I can give you something for the pain, if you need it, but until we find the source, I can’t promise anything.”

The ensign nodded their understanding, and winced again. With a weary smile, they consented to a hypo for the pain, and Tyvaa had just finished injecting them when another crew member came in. They reported similar symptoms, and soon more crewmembers began to arrive. All Tyvaa could do with each patient was to helplessly shrug and offer a pain reliever, a sleep inducer, or a muscle relaxant. The revolving door of patients began to strain Tyvaa’s patience, and she sighed with resignation when she heard the Sickbay doors hiss open again.

Tyvaa saw the provisional pip on their collar before she recognised their face and steeled herself for a painful reaction.

Emre Ayala froze for a moment, but only rubbed at his temple with renewed vigor. “zh’Quallath. You were reassigned last minute?” His tone was stiff and formal, if not confrontational.

“You could say that,” Tyvaa remarked wryly. “Is there something I can help with?”

Ayala grimaced exaggeratedly, but the stiffness in his neck made his pain demonstrably clear. “You know me: tension headaches,” he stated lightly.

Tyvaa frowned. She _did_ know Ayala; if he'd started using the correct medical terminology, then it had started to affect his work and he couldn't put off a Sickbay visit any longer. “You know not to let it get this bad,” she chided gently.

“I guess in all the excitement, I didn't notice until it was too late,” replied Ayala blandly. Tyvaa didn't need any latent psychic ability to know that they weren't really talking about his headache any more.

Tyvaa briskly handed him two hypos; one with a muscle relaxant and another with melatonin. She instructed, “Take these, and then _go to sleep_. If it's gotten this bad, I can guess that you haven't been sleeping, either.”

For a moment, Ayala only stared at her hands, and Tyvaa realized a faint tremor in her hand was making the hypos shake erratically. She hurriedly passed off the hypos to Ayala before clenching her hands into fists. The shaking didn't abate, and Tyvaa felt a creeping cold in the fingers, which shouldn't have been possible given that she was on a _human-designed_ ship with her _Andorian_ physiology.

After clearing her throat, Tyvaa called out faintly, “Computer, please activate the Emergency Medical Hologram.”

The Doctor materialized with a scowl and his customary brusque “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” Upon recognizing Tyvaa, his scowl eased by a few microns. “Lieutenant zh’Quallath.”

“There’s a-” Tyvaa cut herself off and furrowed her eyebrows. “Are you _shorter_?”

“Never mind that,” snapped the Doctor. He snatched up the medical tricorder and scanned her.

“Your oxygen and copper levels are dangerously low,” he informed Tyvaa. “Have you been hydrating and eating regularly?”

“Yes, but the ship is in proximity to a quantum singularity,” Tyvaa explained hurriedly. That was the _only_ explanation for the sudden ailments of the crew and Ayala’s sudden onslaught of headaches, and for her own sudden condition.

“A quantum singularity? I should’ve been informed _immediately_ , as a matter of crew safety,” he groused.

The stark white Sickbay light began to blur, and it seemed as if Tyvaa’s lungs were shut. Her knees nearly give out, but solid, firm hands grounded her by holding her her arms, and gently guiding her to one of the biobeds. Sitting down, Tyvaa took a heavy breath in, opening her eyes once she was sure that she wouldn’t faint.

The Doctor held her steady, and from Tyvaa’s perch on the biobed, the Doctor had to look up slightly to meet her gaze, brown eyes meeting brown eyes. Tyvaa smiled weakly, and inclined her head and her antennae in wordless thanks. He nodded shortly, but not unkindly.

“Stay there,” The Doctor instructed. “You’re exhausted, and the singularity is making it worse.”

Tyvaa scoffed quietly, a token complaint about being told to stay, but she wrapped her arms around herself and sat obediently on the biobed. The Doctor entered the tiny medical office, and Tyvaa could faintly hear him talking to the Captain, but Tyvaa conserved her energy by not putting effort into following the conversation. Before she knew it, she felt weightless, and she dropped off to sleep.

* * *

 

Waking up was sudden, like falling, and Tyvaa heard the strangled scream stuck in her throat when she jolted back into consciousness. She was still in Sickbay, still laying on the biobed in the corner. All of the other biobeds lay empty, neat and clean as if they were never used. Kes was puttering around Sickbay with PADDs and hypos.

Tyvaa’s awakening caught Kes’ attention, and the young woman scurried over to her bedside. “How do you feel, Tyvaa?” she asked.

At her first attempt to speak, she felt as if there was sandpaper coating her throat. Tyvaa coughed a few times, and spoke softly, “Like something crawled in my mouth and died.”

“But your vision is clear and you can breathe normally?”

Tyvaa didn’t reply at first, taking a few seconds to breathe deeply, blink, and rotate her antennae. “Self-diagnostic says I’m good to go,” she confirmed, and slid herself off of the biobed. With a glance around the near-empty Sickbay, she added, “Is everyone else alright?”

“Thankfully, yes. Everyone but you woke up soon after we broke free of the singularity,” Kes reported.  The young Ocampa continued to look at her curiously, however, and Tyvaa could feel the pressure of the unasked question: _what’s wrong with you and not the others?_

Tyvaa turned away, and walked into the tiny medical office where, to her surprise, Ensign Harry Kim was typing away furiously at the console. A bundle of dark fabric sat on the desk beside him, but when Harry looked up at her entry, Tyvaa redirected her focus.

“You’re awake!” Harry cheerfully exclaimed. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks,” replied Tyvaa. “No offense, Kim, but what are you doing here?”

“That quantum singularity messed with the Doctor’s imaging processors,” he explained. “While the crew all got better on their own, computers don’t heal like humans do, so I’ve been running damage control.”

Tyvaa nodded in understanding, and then picked up the bundle of fabric. The Starfleet medical science teal made her stomach sink to her toes. Another set of Lieutenant Junior Grade pips were already fastened to the lavender collar.

“He really was serious about that,” she muttered under her breath.

Harry hadn't heard her mumbled remark, and triumphantly keyed in the last sequence. “And… done! Computer, activate Emergency Medical Holographic program.”

The Doctor appeared immediately, standing stiff and rigid as he always did. “Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” he said.

Tyvaa stepped up to him and smiled when she saw that the Doctor was still a few centimeters shorter than her. It amused her, that she was taller than him. Then, the memory struck her, and she burst out laughing.

Both the Doctor and Harry Kim looked at her in askance, and the Doctor seemed affronted by her behaviour, so Tyvaa made the effort to speak through her laughter.

“Zimmerman was always so upset that he was short, so he made you shorter than him so he didn’t have to look up at you!” howled Tyvaa through her laughter, and the fierce happiness she felt was suddenly tainted with a familiar longing for the sight of the Red Spot outside her window, for the times spent watching Felix and Zimmerman go after each other, needling each other into creating better holographic systems.

Once Tyvaa had gotten a lid on her laughter, she hugged the Doctor tightly for several seconds. “I know you don’t get the joke, you probably don’t remember Zimmerman, but thank you anyway. I needed a good laugh.”

The expression on the Doctor’s face was nothing short of baffled, but he managed to reply, “You’re… welcome, Lieutenant.”

“Tyvaa,” she insisted with a hesitant smile. She lifted the bundled uniform, showing him the medical teal. “Since I’ll have to learn the finer points of human medicine from you to be an effective medical officer, I'm officially giving you permission to use my first name.”

The Doctor nodded shortly. “Good. With more medical staff, perhaps my uses will be less trivial than dirt samples in the future,” he said pointedly.

“I already apologized for that, Doctor!” Kes called from greater Sickbay, which made Tyvaa giggle.

“Yes, I’ll take what medical duties I can and bow in deference to your knowledge when necessary, Doctor,” Tyvaa replied dryly. “You’ll still have to be patient with me; I only received a doctorate for Andorian medicine, and it's been almost a decade since I had any practical experience to speak of.”

“If I must,” sighed The Doctor, but his tone wasn't unkind. “I’ll see you at 0700 tomorrow, Lieu- Tyvaa,” he hurriedly corrected as she gave him a pointed look.

“I’ll be here,” promised Tyvaa. She inclined her antennae in an amicable gesture, and was relieved to see him nod in return.

As Tyvaa exited Sickbay, Harry asked her, “Do you want me to walk you back to your quarters, Lieutenant? You did just wake up from a coma.”

“It wasn't a coma,” she protested, but she fell into step with him anyhow. “How are you adjusting to all this?” she added, gesturing to the ship at large.

Harry didn't meet her eyes for a moment, then shrugged it off. “I mean, I miss home,” he began, “but so does everyone else, I guess.”

Tyvaa nodded in wordless agreement. It wasn't a long walk to her quarters, and soon Tyvaa reached out a hand to stop her companion. “This is me.”

After a brief goodbye, the door slid open to admit her, and Tyvaa was surprised to see B’Elanna sitting at the small table inside, staring at a PADD and intermittently eating some kind of finger food that Tyvaa didn't recognize. Given the quiet corridors and the dim lighting, she had assumed it was late in the “day”.

“You didn't need to wait up for me, Bee,” stated Tyvaa, arching an eyebrow.

B’Elanna’s head jerked upward at the surprised tone, and her eyes flicked to Harry’s retreating form before going back to Tyvaa. “Apparently not,” she replied, a teasing smile growing on her face.

“Oh, shut it, you. You're the one who was stuck on a planet with him for three days,” Tyvaa protested. “You know him much better than I do.”

“Ey, watch it; that's the new Chief Engineer you're sassing, Lieutenant,” retorted B’Elanna, although there was no bite in the words and she wore a proud smile on her face.

Tyvaa grinned widely and replicated two flutes of champagne. Handing one to her roommate, she said, “Congratulations, Bee. Just make sure you don't send anyone to Sickbay anymore, alright?”

“If any of my engineers get sent to your Sickbay, it'll be because they were idiots,” declared B’Elanna.

“And we all know how well you suffer fools in your Engine Room,” Tyvaa shot back with a lighthearted laugh, sitting next to B’Elanna. “But it's not _my_ Sickbay. You really want these hands trying to figure out human biology on the fly? I'm a nurse-- a field medic, at best.”

“That's one more medic than we had a yesterday,” she insisted. “Give yourself more credit, Tyv.”

“If you say so,” conceded Tyvaa. “I'm just glad things are starting to come together. We've still got our rough edges, but at least we fit where we are now, yeah?”

“Not perfectly,” B’Elanna replied shortly.

Tyvaa raised her glass slightly. “To being like oddly shaped puzzle pieces, then?” she proposed.

B’Elanna made a short laugh, and raised her glass. “You know I’ll drink to that.”

_Clink!_


End file.
